1. Field Of The Invention
This invention relates to a mass transit system which can carry through a pipeline persons, goods or materials from one covered station to another, and which is especially adapted to serve as a people mover that allows access to a vehicle or car inside the station at any time. The cars form an endless train which moves under tension non-stop at a constant speed through the pipeline as well as through the stations.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
Existing discontinuous transport systems of public conveyance, such as railroad trains, streetcars, monorails, subways, automobiles, etc., provide a mode of transportation which is characterized by "stop-and-go" displacements that use up a substantial portion of the total travel time, and are very expensive to operate. Suggestions have already been made to deal with this serious problem facing our big cities.
The following U.S. patents are illustrative of relevant prior art:
4,221,170, PA1 4,102,272, PA1 3,952,666, PA1 3,727,558, PA1 3,552,321, PA1 3,339,494, PA1 817,156, PA1 780,268, PA1 474,657.
The most pertinent reference is believed to be U.S. Pat. No. 3,865,041 to Bacon who shows boats which are detached from each other and are propelled by a rotatable platform at a passenger loading station but elsewhere they move independently of each other and are self propelled. His single passenger loading station comprises the platform which is rotatable about a fixed axis and has a driving convex cylindrical wall around its outside circumferential edge which is covered with a rubber bumper. A waterway loops around a portion of this convex wall, and has straight portions leading away from and toward the circular platform. The boats are only forcibly urged against the convex wall. The exclusive means for so urging the boats into frictional engagement with the rotating platform is an outer circular wall 45. When so pushed against the platform, the boats and the platform's outer circumferential edge will move with zero relative linear velocity therebetween. To avoid the need for such an outer wall 45 as in Bacon, it has been suggested to utilize sprocket type drives, which are cumbersome, bulky and heavy. They employ too many moving and complex parts and therefore are too expensive to manufacture and maintain. But, the chief problem with them lies in the fact that the sprockets stretch and as a result require complex synchronizing systems for obtaining true zero relative velocity between the rotatable platform and the cars.
In accordance with this invention, the propulsion for the chain of cars is automatically synchronized with the propulsion of at least two revolving platforms, so that there is no relative velocity therebetween. This is accomplished without any outside agencies, such as electronic speed synchronizing networks, or an outer wall such as that of Bacon. The invention requires no drive sprockets. It uses a tensioned endless train of very small cars in order to produce the required forces between the train and the platform so that frictional forces can be developed and transferred directly to the train from the platform. The generated platform-to-car forces are primarily normal with resulting shear driving forces developed between each car and the platform. It thus relies exclusively on tension within the endless train to generate the transfer of propulsion energy from the platform to the train.